


In Art as in Love

by Brorifles (Kyloisadisneyprincess)



Series: Crossed Stars [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Feels, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 20:22:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7815787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyloisadisneyprincess/pseuds/Brorifles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kallus and Zeb both know that it is right when they are together... because it feels wrong when they are not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Art as in Love

The rebels’ mission was successful. Agent Kallus watches the ghost break away from the pursuing tie fighters and race into the upper atmosphere. As they disappear, he realizes that as soon as they make the jump to hyperspace, his only friend and lover will be light years away, unreachable.

Has he never watched them go before? It’s hard to recall. Most times he is safely out of the way, well, as safe as someone knocked unconscious can be. 

The pilots have given up the chase and are returning to the airfield. Maintenance crews bustle around him, oblivious to the agent staring vacantly up at the darkening sky. 

But it takes only one to notice.

“Agent Kallus,” as voice breaks into his reverie. “ would you join me in my office?”

Kallus’s heart drops, there is no way he could know what i was thinking, he reminds himself as he turns to look into his superior’s red glowing eyes.

Grand Admiral Thrawn continues “I believe you have dealt with these specific rebels on more occasions than I. Any information you have on how they operate would be most helpful.”

“Of course.” Kallus replies. He can humor the Grand Admiral. If anything, Kallus’s expertise would only help him know what NOT to do. For example: don’t fall in love with your enemy just because he looks big and brutish but is actually cuddly, conscientious, and kind.

Thrawn gestures back towards the base and the Kallus complies, marching forward with as little hesitation as he can manage. Thrawn however, hangs back for a few precious seconds. He peers up at the sky in search of what the agent had been studying with such fondness and longing.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zeb watches the planet flash out of existence as they make the jump to lightspeed. After each time he leaves Kallus behind the Ghost feels a little less like home. Nothing about the ship has changed the little rust bucket still zaps things and there is still the soft hissing of sabine’s paint gun. He knows it’s only himself that is different now.

Well, maybe not.

Nothing was the same after Malechor and Sabine is repainting the ship. Huge murals floor to ceiling with three dimensional markers so it’s easier for Kanan to move around. She is working on something in the galley now. He hears her chiding herself, taking a measured three paces back to critique her own work. He doesn't understand how she does her painting. There is no formula; no way to be certain that its right.

He leaves the cockpit to see what she’s up to. It’s the star-bird he bets. She hasn’t been happy with it from the beginning. She’s still staring at it trying to will it to be what she wants.

“Your going to drive yourself crazy with that thing” he says slipping into the bench behind the table.

“It’s not right.” she states firmly.

“So, what ya going to do about it?” he questions.

“I don’t know,” she pauses. “It’s like being in love. I have to trust that something in me knows what it’s doing.”

He huffs “ ya, your instincts won’t steer you wrong.”

“No...they won’t.” she answers before snapping back into action. “In art as in love, instinct is enough”

The star bird is covered in a mixture of patterns broken out into shapes. He recognizes his stripes in one piece, Hera’s lekku pattern in another, some sections are unfinished, others unclaimed. Maybe Sabine is trying to put together a puzzle without all the pieces. Instinct or not, he knows of at least one that is missing from his own heart.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
“In order to truly know your enemy you must understand their history, philosophy, art” Grand admiral Thrawn circles around a holo of one of the rebel symbols. “Tea, Agent?” He offers.

“No, thank you.” Kallus declines. This meeting was shaping up to be more than the standard briefing he was used to.

“This particular symbol has an avian resemblance, establishing the importance of flight and by association freedom to the rebel cause.” Thrawn postulates.

“Yes,” Kallus agrees. “The rebels do view the empire as a source of oppression.”

“Ludacris, anyone can flourish in the empire as long as they have the right disposition. These rebels are little more than raging children or feral animals lashing out at a hand that would otherwise help them.”

There was no help for the Lasat. Kallus thinks. But he nods in agreement anyway.  
“They need to be put down. Civilization does not lend itself to having it’s members act instinctually. And for all my love of art, artists are the worst of these instinct driven people, They are the most dangerous. There is not a place in the galaxy where one cannot find an artist and they have a way of sparking a flame in others.”

Kallus stares into the holo, the rebel star-bird broken down into mosaic sections of pattern. One of the sections belongs to Zeb. He would remember the line of his stripes anywhere and next to his place is a space for Kallus. Consider my flame sparked he thinks.

“Don’t you agree, Agent?” Thrawn questions. His crimson eyes narrowing into slits.

“Yes.” he answers a bit too suddenly. “only animals are motivated by instinct, they certainly need to be extinguished. They love their freedom too dearly”

“Yes, however they are not an enemy i wish to underestimate. You see, in art as in war instinct is often enough.” 

Kallus nods in agreement again while quietly musing to himself. Just as it is in love.

**Author's Note:**

> In art as in love instinct is enough. -Anatole France
> 
> Come check me out on tumblr!!! @brorifles


End file.
